School information for schools in the Dallas, Texas area. Sources - Texas Education Agency, Just 4 Kids, The Dallas Morning News, Dallas Business Journal, Great Schools.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

2012 U.S. News Best High Schools in the Dallas area

U.S. News & World Report evaluated 22,000 public high schools and ranked the schools based on how the students did compared to other students in the state in math and reading, how the low income students did, how the least-advantaged students did, and how college-ready the students were using IB and AP - participating rates and scores.

About This Blog

-Public school students take the high stakes STAAR test which began in Spring 2012. Prior to that time, public school students took the high stakes TAKS test.

-Private school students are not required to take the STAAR/TAKS test. Private schools are not ranked by the state. Private schools do not report SAT scores to the state.

-Charter schools are public schools, not private schools. Students attending charter schools still must take STAAR tests.

-ISD stands for Independent School District. School district boundary lines do not follow city limit lines. You can live in one city, but be zoned for an ISD with another city's name. Confirm addresses with the school districts. There are over 100 ISD's in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Realtors are often wrong about zoning. Some apartment complexes can feed into different school districts depending on which building you are in.

-School rankings are given to the public schools by the Texas Education Agency based on STAAR/TAKS scores, attendance rate and drop out rate. Under the old TAKS test, the categories from best to worst were (1) Exemplary, (2) Recognized, (3) Academically Acceptable and (4) Academically Unacceptable. Due to drop out rates, it is very difficult for high schools to get the Exemplary rating. However, drop out rates are not accurately reported. They are really much worse than the schools claim.

-The STAAR test began in Spring 2012, replacing TAKS. There were no school rankings given during the first year of STAAR. Now there are rankings based on STAAR testing, but there are only two possible rankings making it essentially a Pass/Fail system. Due to extremely low passing criteria, the majority of schools in Texas received a "pass" rating. There is a blog post with the failing schools in the DFW area for 2013.